A prosthetic foot is an important part of a leg prosthesis. The prosthetic foot should be able to reliably store and release energy while dynamically flexing and adapting to changing loads to coordinate movements in the foot prosthesis with the muscular action when a user walks, runs, or stands. It is desirable that a prosthetic foot is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, yet can be easily made to fit users of different sizes, be highly functional and durable. In recent years, significant advance has been achieved in the field of prosthetic feet. However, many of the available prosthetic feet are mechanically complex and employ a number of moving parts. While such devices may provide good and reliable performance characteristics, their cost and complexity limit their use and availability in particular in high volume applications and in user communities which do not have a sophisticated technical infrastructure to support and maintain such devices.
To this end it has been proposed to construct prosthetic foot devices comprising one or more spring blades, as set out in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,865,612, 5,258,039, 6,099,572, 6,669,737, 6,972,043. Although these devices have somewhat overcome the drawbacks of more mechanically complex devices, they still suffer from problems related to the mechanical strength and flexibility of a prosthetic foot device.
Accordingly, as disclosed herein, it is an object to provide a further improved and simplified prosthetic foot.